The house was a different matter. That had been Unt’s home and his connection to the parents he couldn’t remember. If he could have picked it up and put it down here he’d have been happy and would never have a second thought of seeing that lot again.
* * * *
On the second day, he woke with the first of the morning sun and went in search of the mystery settlement. First, he tracked back for a bit and near a stream, on the other side, he saw a path. He reasoned the men who quarried the ravine must cross here so he leapt across to follow their path instead.
It led him back along terrain much like where he’d spent the night. Narrow cuttings ran twisted between bare rock. These ravines, however, branched frequently and it wasn’t long before he lost all sense of direction. When he came across a dead-end, he tried to backtrack but discovered he couldn’t find the path again.
Unt was angry with himself for making such an error. It was a sorry start to his survivalist career. He should have paid attention to where he was going. He should have laid markers. He tried to rule out each channel, one by one, but when they too split, he only found himself getting more confused.
Get to high ground, he told himself. Get above it and see where you need to go. Plot a route. The problem was that there was no easy climb out of the maze he’d got himself into. Panic started to set in as his search for a way out grew more desperate. He had to stop, calm himself down and engage his brain. Keep going clockwise, he told himself. Eventually you’ll find a way out.
That was the tactic he decided on and he stuck to it. Finally, it paid dividends. He emerged from a ravine into unfamiliar territory. A wide rolling hill led down toward a green forest that stretched away as far as the eye could see. There was no town.
He looked back at the granite maze behind him. Left and right, that too went to the limits of his vision. He didn’t fancy going around it and he sure as hell wasn’t going back into it. The forest looked lush and inviting from up here but beneath the canopy it would be every bit as much a maze.
He was caught between a rock and a soft place. The soft place had the better potential. Unt started walking downhill.
* * * *
In the afternoon, it became clear that Pearson’s advice was useless. Moss, it turned out, grew on all sides of a tree when the tree was one of many beneath a dense blanket of leaves. Unt didn’t mind though, he didn’t need to get anywhere in a hurry. South was only a vague target and he decided the sensible thing to do was to skirt the edge of the forest.
He’d hoped he might find some food to exchange for the filth in his pockets but none of the trees at the forest’s edge seemed the type to bear fruit.
Before the day was out, he resorted to eating two apples. He started by picking the two worst ones but when he put one in his mouth, he recoiled and threw it away. He ate the second one and then, thinking better, he retrieved the discarded one and shovelled it down. The flesh had turned to the point of liquid and it trickled down his throat like foul syrup.
The taste stayed but the night was more comfortable than the last. The day had brought the first scares of being alone but he was over that now. These things would happen but he’d learn.
* * * *
On the third day, everything changed. High grey clouds drifted over the summer scene, the rain came and everywhere seemed suddenly bleak and barren. The heavens hadn’t opened, it was just a light drizzle but it was sustained and it seeped deeper and deeper into his fibres.
Unt had gone under the trees for shelter. He’d thought the canopy that had blocked out the sun would block out the rain but that wasn’t the case. The rain was so fine it seemed to penetrate everything. As well as that, the leaves and branches collected the water and stored it till it was too heavy to bear. Then it fell in great splashes that drenched in one shot.
Meanwhile, the undergrowth had become damp. It soaked through the stitching in his shoes and his trousers drew the water like the roots of a plant, sucking it up so he felt it at his knees.
Unt found the driest patch he could and hoped to see out the weather but it lasted all day. Slowly but surely, it soaked through his clothes until he was sat shivering. He told himself the best way to stay warm was to keep active so he started to walk again.
The more he drudged on, the more miserable he became. After a while, he found his path blocked by a stream. He’d passed others already but they were little, dried-up things. This stream was swollen by the rain coming off the hills and it was more like a small river.
It was too much to jump so he had little choice but to follow it. The question was in which direction should he go? The stream was flowing into the woods, which wasn’t the way he wanted to go but it seemed to make more sense to go with the flow than to fight it.
The forest darkened the deeper he went. The bank was muddy and slippery. Bits of ground looked stable but when he put his weight on them, they collapsed away, exposing the spider-web of roots that had been holding them in place.
Somewhere, the rain ended but the way the canopy delayed its effects, it was some time before Unt noticed. It made no difference to the ground he walked on. It was saturated and with nothing to dry or drain it, the water just sat there, waiting for Unt to step in it.
Somewhere along the line, the stream petered out. It didn’t dry up, it just sort of mingled with the earth. The distinction between the two blurred and then disappeared entirely. Before he knew it, the bank Unt had been walking along had dropped down and melted away so that it was part of the stream bed. With every step he took, his feet were sinking further. Finally, one foot sank past his ankle and then he was stuck.
Looking up, he saw that he was in a sort of hollow. As his banked path had vanished, raised bits of ground had closed in from the side and become new banks. Unnoticed, they’d crept closer and higher so that now he was swallowed in a hole of mud.
He looked around this place that he’d found himself in, searching for a spot of firm ground to aim for. His mind wanted to call it a grove, if that was the right word. There was no-one around to contradict him so that’s what he settled on.
The trees nearby, such as they were, were squat, black, gnarled things. Instead of a single trunk, they had many small ones that looked like they’d fought each other to haul themselves out of the mud. They were like dead things and their roots poked through the earth walls like skeletal remains.
Unt looked wearily behind him. If he went back along that path, it was a long way that he’d have to retrace his steps. A gap in the far bank offered a sloped exit that was tempting. He’d have to cross the middle of the hollow but it was a much quicker way out.
Heck, he thought, it was worth a try. If he got toward the middle and found the mud was getting too deep he could always retreat back here.
Instinctively, he hand reached in his pocket for his dice. “No,” he said, “You’re a free man now. Just do what you want.” He decided to go for it but it was still harder to put his dice down than to pull his foot out of the mud.
With a tug of force, he worked his foot free but the transferred weight pushed his other foot down. Still, he managed to point himself in the right direction and strived forward.
The going was surprisingly easy. It was still hard work but as he reached the middle, he was sinking less than half-way up his shin.
“Keep going,” he breathed and pushed on.
The sloping gap loomed large and inviting. Its clay face looked slick but he could see roots sticking out like ladder rungs that would give him something to grip. One large root groped its way down the right-hand edge of the gap and he aimed for that point.
Less than two yards from his goal, the mud got suddenly softer. He sank right down to his knee and swore. His leg was only inches deeper than it had been getting already - less than a foot - but those extra inches multiplied the suction he had to fight.
He couldn’t budge it. With all his strength, he couldn’t move. His trapped leg was stuck solid and his free one had nothing firm
to push against.
The closeness of the bank taunted him. A couple more steps and he’d be there but two steps was still more than he could manage.
What was he going to do? Nothing would improve by his doing nothing and there was zero chance of a rescuer stumbling across him. His only hope was himself.
First things first, he’d make what gains he could. He had one foot that was almost free. He’d get it as far as he could. At least then the problem would be halved.
With a surge of effort, he pulled the leg free and swung it forward as far as he could. It sunk down as far as the other. The bottom of his thigh rested on mud. He was almost doing the splits but here at least, the mud did something for him and took the strain.
The bank was close, just more than an arm’s reach away. The root reached down toward him like a deathly arm offering salvation from the grave.
He reached out to touch it but it was too far. His fingertips brushed its wet surface but he wasn’t near enough to grip.
“No!” he sobbed, “No!” This was what Lasper had wanted, for Unt to die alone and forgotten in a miserable hole. The thought gave him resolve. He wouldn’t let that old bastard have his way.
He leaned back, tensing his body like the arm of a catapult. Then he flung himself forward. His whole torso slapped down with a wet smack. His face went in the mire but the fingers of one hand had coiled around a branch.
It was the most tenuous grip but it was the start he needed. Seizing the moment, he grabbed the branch with his other hand. He then inched his fingers closer till he had a proper grip. He sighed in relief and relaxed a bit but he kept his fingers taut.
He stayed there a moment to catch his breath and when he’d got his strength back, he pulled with all his might. It wasn’t enough to get him loose. It didn’t seem like he’d moved an inch but the stretch to the branch was slacker. He had made some progress.
Again, he rested and again, he hauled. Once more, there was just a little more slack. He carried on like this for Fate knew how long and inch by inch, he clawed his way out. At last, his trailing leg was pulled free, then came the other. He hauled his body to the bottom of the slope and clung on.
Physically and mentally, his strength was exhausted. He just wanted to hang there and sleep but he knew he had to get the job finished. He looked up the slope. It was maybe eight feet to the top: a huge ask, but do-able.
With gritted teeth, he pulled himself onward. “Bastard!” he spat with every haul. “Bastard!” He focused on his hatred of Lasper, drawing strength from it. There was nothing but his hate, the branch and the slope.
Inch by slick inch, he worked his way up. When he pulled his head above the crest he had no energy left for triumph. He slithered his body over the summit and lay still.
He could have slept there forever but he settled for what he guessed was an hour. His face lay against the dirt, looking down on the site that could have been his grave. “I can’t do this,” he groaned.
He staggered to his feet and shuffled along until he got to firm ground. He found a corner and lay down to sleep. He didn’t know what direction he’d taken and he didn’t care. He just settled down to endure his first night of discomfort.
* * * *
That night, he woke in darkness, shivering in his damp clothes. The moon had been near-full for the last few nights but it had no more luck penetrating this place than the sun did during the day.
At night, the forest was noisy, much more than it had been during the day. He knew it was only small creatures with big voices but knowing didn’t help. The blackness was so complete that the only things in the world were those guttural animal noises. He spent the rest of the night in terror until just before dawn when the noises finally stopped.
* * * *
Ten days into his exile, Unt was starting to learn things. A dislodged piece of turf giving way to a puddle of mud wasn’t just an inconvenience or discomfort. It meant a night spent with a frozen foot and one more addition to the growing sensation that you were rotting from the boots up.
He learned to strip down in the aftermath of rain and let his clothes dry by the elements and not through sapping his body heat. Typically, he’d find some rocks to lay his clothes on and then he’d sit there, next to naked, while they dried.
Sometimes he felt at one with nature and sometimes he felt like a ruined man. His continual worry was what he would do when it was no longer summer and stripping down meant freezing to death.
Hopefully, he’d have found another settlement by then. He’d got out of the forest a few days earlier and since then, he’d covered an unremarkable landscape and had seen no people. There had to be someone, somewhere but whether he found them depended on him living that long.
He’d already used up his meagre stores and his clothes had quickly become worn thin and filthy. He saw animals that he might have hunted but he didn’t have the skills. One day, he rounded a bluff and found himself face-to-face with a mighty stag. He could have reached out and touched him, he was so close. The deer just stood there and looked at him disdainfully, like it was mocking his ineptitude. It looked at him until it grew bored and loped away proudly.
His training on edible mushrooms was especially useless. Most of the time, he didn’t see anything and when he did, he doubted his own judgement and generally gave them a wide berth. What other plants were edible, he could only guess at. He was pretty much limited to familiar fruits and berries which were few and far between.
When he couldn’t find streams to drink from, he drank from puddles and afterwards, got headaches. When he felt the hunger and thirst most keenly, he laughed with bitter irony that the man who’d wanted to feed a town couldn’t even feed himself without the trappings of civilisation.
* * * *
It was a week further on, or he thought it was. He was losing track of days. He’d meant to mark them out and be sure but already he was contradicting himself. He’d decide to count a day, then he’d be sure he’d already done it and then he’d change his mind again. Time had no meaning except the rhythm of day and night and the slow, barely perceptible changing of the season.
His situation was both worse and better. It was worse because the hardships he’d already endured were piling on top of each other. Each was an extra burden to carry.
It was better because, after aimless wandering, he’d found a stream that bubbled with clear water. Mentally, he named it the Life Blood and he drank deep from it before making camp. There was enough stuff nearby to make a pretty decent shelter and he even had the luxury of a fire.
He stayed there for some days and even learned to catch morsel-sized fish by corralling them into tiny pools and blocking them in with stones. He used up more energy catching them than he probably got from eating them but it was good to feel the taste of meat between his teeth again.
He was tempted to stay forever but he knew it could only be a temporary camp. It would maybe see him through autumn but by winter he’d need proper shelter and that meant finding people. Eventually, he said goodbye to his little camp and started to follow the Life Blood downstream.
* * * *
He kept with the Lifeblood until it joined a proper river. He followed that in the hope it would join another, bigger river. After days though, he found nothing and the going was slower and slower. He still had a supply of water but he could no longer catch his little fish.
With nothing to do but walk and think, his mind shifted violently between missing the township and hating them, between blaming himself and blaming the ones who’d given evidence against him.
As each mood swung to its most extreme, he couldn’t see any way of feeling other than how he felt right then but later, the very same morning, he’d be convinced of the absolute opposite.
The mental effort was exhausting and it drew from what little physical reserves were left in him. One day, he realised he’d been walking the entire morning and had travelled only one bend of the river.
At the apex of the ne
xt bend, at the foot of a wooded mountain, he sat by a boulder and decided to lie down to recover. Several hours later, he realised he hadn’t recovered a thing. He had lost something and that was the will to carry on. He was mildly surprised that that didn’t seem to bother him and he lay down to sleep.
18. The Wizard
“What have we got here, then? Some poor creature, I’ll warrant, eh?”
These were the words Unt awoke to. He opened his eyes a slither to see a tall figure standing over him. His eyes were weak and it was grey in the twilight so he couldn’t make out the details. All he got was the definitive impression of fur, horns and a round, mad eye.
He wondered if the vision was a nightmare but couldn’t be bothered to fight it off. He just lay there and let the apparition wander around him, prodding him with a stick and muttering as it went. It was hard work to watch so he didn’t. He hardly felt the bumps and rough treatment. He could barely follow the words.
“My, my, a boy,” it muttered, “And far from home and no mistake. Emaciated, poor thing. Bruises and a fever too. No broken bones though, by the looks of things and no holes in the barrel for the claret to escape.”
“But what to do with him?”
“Never pick up a fallen chick or the mother’ll reject him. That’s what they say. By the state of him, mind, I’d say this one’s been long rejected.”
This two-way monologue was enough to stir something in Unt. “Who are you?” he managed to ask.
The figure leaned back in exaggerated surprise. “It speaks, eh? And why shouldn’t it? You can call me the Wizard lad, aye, the Wizard.”
The Fall of Chance Page 28